Will Charles County become another Prince George's County? (Waldorf, Dunkirk: homes, buying)

[justtitans]

Originally Posted by (-)

I think that is interesting how you mentioned that "Black Flight" and "White Flight" from PG County is filtering into two separate counties. Although, Calvert County is the 13th wealthiest and Charles County is the 21st wealthiest in the U.S., the median household income is only separated by abouth $2500. So it doesn't seem like a matter of income that blacks move into Charles and whites move into Calvert. I wonder what are the circumstances that make blacks want to move into Charles County rather than Calvert County and vice-versa. They seem to be very similar.

this is rather easy. most blacks from dc and pg move to charles county because for them it's considered suburban and nice compared to where they are coming from. the schools are way better than those in pg or dc. they also have a chance to own newer homes than they would have in pg or dc. it's also important to note that the drive to pg and dc from charles county is a lot faster than it would be moving to calvert. there's more shopping in charles county as well.

more whites move to calvert county because the schools are top notch. for what folks pay to send their children to private schools in pg and dc, calvert county's public school system can meet or exceed. i believe calvert county has the highest paid teachers in the state and the quality they provide shows. they also have a better quality of life in calvert. better homes, more rural setting, great schools, low crime, high property value.

As to the rate of speed, I think white Marylanders are not migrating into other counties, white Marylanders are just leaving the state (http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/2011/02/hispanics-drive-marylands-population-growth - broken link)altogether when moving!

I disagree with you a bit. I think that those might be some of the reasons people are moving to those places, but I really think it comes down to cost. Let's be honest, whites tend to make more money than blacks. Charles County is a lot more affordable than Calvert. Although Calvert has some affordable parts, most of the ones that are commutable to DC are expensive to live in. If my memory serves me correct, Dunkirk has a lot of homes $500K+, where you can get a homes in Waldorf for $250K+. It just comes down to affordability in my opinion.

[liliblu]

Race has a lot to do with it. As blacks and/or hispanics start moving into predominantly white suburbs, white flight usually follows.

[Steelers10]

Originally Posted by liliblu

Race has a lot to do with it. As blacks and/or hispanics start moving into predominantly white suburbs, white flight usually follows.

I agree. This is why I'm leaning toward Charles County becoming more like PG County. I found an interesting trend. When you on SchoolDigger.com and look at the demographics of Charles County and PG County high schools, when the school becomes exactly 50% black, the white student population plummets, but almost never before that point. It is clear that this demographic trend is reactionary.

What I also noticed is a peculiar trend of PG County high schools outside of the beltway. The ones in high income, low density areas you would expect to be rated high. But they are not. Still, these high schools are generally newer, state-of-the-art facilities or just in otherwise well-maintained over time (like Bowie High) presumably due to the area in which they reside.

However, the scant reviews found for each of these high schools (mostly from students) reveal all of the same thing. The school building is nice, but extremely overcrowded, not cleaned very well, and has an underqualified teaching staff. The enrollment numbers seem to corroborate these student reviews that the schools far outside of the beltway are far overcapacity while the schools inside the beltway are undercapacity.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the poor overall schools are more than just unresponsive students with droopy pants and bad attitudes. I think with what we have witnessed with Jack Johnson, PG County is a large entity but with few large-scale private enterprises, investment, or job centers. The only mechanisms in PG County that have hundreds of millions of dollars in discretionary funds are the county government and the public schools.

So very much like a developing country where the source of wealth is the government (which is why presidents of those countries refuse to leave office), PG County public officials are using the school system as a barter and trade platform. I wouldn't doubt political favors are paid out by administrators and teachers "who know somebody" being placed in the better facilities regardless of qualifications (usually not the best) and school zone boundaries are drawn to cast an unnecessarily wide net to show the black population that the present government can get something done. "There are no private-sector jobs in the county but look, your out of zone kid goes to a magnificent school unlike the one you came from in SE DC that was built 70 years ago and crumbling to the ground! Vote for me!" I have seen this very same phenomenon on the Southside of metro Atlanta where high-income blacks live there but the only major employment center is the airport (albeit the busiest in the world). PG County doesn't even have this and much higher taxes to boot! Not an environment that would encourage the highest qualified teachers to move there.

So I think a contributing factor of what may get transferred to Charles County from PG County is not a lack of wealth, crime-free, educated populations, but a governmental system that thrives off of graft. If memory serves me correctly, PG County had some kind of disastrous millage rate or tax hike vote that was like an upraised middle finger by an outgoing administration in the early 1980s. Does anyone have any insight to this occurrence?

But the PG County tax rates on income, real estate, and utilities are inexplicably higher than those in Montgomery County. It seems like these funds are doing more to line the pockets of politicians with no private revenue streams than actually improve the infrastructure of the county. So absent a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services type set up like MoCo has, I don't see how PG County can overcome its present status and Charles County seems to be going down the same path.

[(-)]

Originally Posted by meatkins

I disagree with you a bit. I think that those might be some of the reasons people are moving to those places, but I really think it comes down to cost. Let's be honest, whites tend to make more money than blacks. Charles County is a lot more affordable than Calvert. Although Calvert has some affordable parts, most of the ones that are commutable to DC are expensive to live in. If my memory serves me correct, Dunkirk has a lot of homes $500K+, where you can get a homes in Waldorf for $250K+. It just comes down to affordability in my opinion.

overall whites do tend to make more money than blacks. yes, that's a fact of life in most cities. but in the dc area, blacks aren't that far behind whites when it comes to earning potential. thanks to the federal government and tis footprint.
i think this whole debate depends on perspective and history. 15 years ago, NOBODY wanted to move to calvert county over charles county. calvert was seen as a redneck, hick, county in southern md. everybody wanted to move to charles county because of waldorf. that's where all the new developments were and that's where all the high end living was. 15 years later, calvert county is the bees-knees now. everybody wants to move to calvert county for its schools. now there's new development and new schools popping up all over the county.
the northern end of calvert has always been home to the county's high income earners due to it's proximity to dc. however, there are high income areas in southern calvert as well due to folks who work at pax river or calvert cliffs. also southern calvert has always been a hideaway for wealthy folks who had vacation homes in solomons island and chesapeake ranch club (they used to be all vacation homes, now it's like a city within a city).

[North Beach Person]

In Calvert the growth controls that were adopted in the late 80's are now kicking in so you will see that growth has, and will continue to, slow down.

[(-)]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

In Calvert the growth controls that were adopted in the late 80's are now kicking in so you will see that growth has, and will continue to, slow down.

by growth control do you mean failure to acknowledge a need for more than 1 main highway? it frustrates me to no end that they would allow all of that residential and commercial development along route 2 & 4 and NOT plan for a better highway system in the county. as it stands now for the most part, if an accident happens on 2/4 in prince frederick or huntingtown and you live in the southern part of the county, you are pretty much screwed. which is absolutely stupid because most of the growth in the county, believe it or not, is in the southern part of the county. i believe the biggest town/city calvert county has is lusby/chesapeake ranch estates/drum point area. i believe there is roughly 30,000 people living in that area.

[North Beach Person]

Blame the State for Rte. 4. They made the decision to not expand the highway system, not the County.

The growth controls that were adopted around 1989 limited residential growth. The problem was that those regulations didn't go into effect immediately but had a 2 or 3 month lead time until they took effect. So what happened was that developers put a big push on to register the sub-divisions and preliminary site plans ahead of the deadline. I was in Prince Frederick on the last day before the limits took effect and the line of developers registering their plans was out the Courthouse door and around the block. All those plans were then grandfathered in. Those lots have now pretty much been built out.

The Ranch Club has issues that the residents don't wish to face because solving them means making hard decisions and some money. The best thing the Ranch Club could do is incorporate as a municipality. That would mean somewhat higher property taxes but would allow them to get grants for roads, stormwater, police services, etc. They aren't eligible now because they're unincorporated. As it is now they want the County to take over the roads, like it did in White Sands, but the County won't do it until the roads are brought up to County standards. Which is how White Sands did it, a section a year. You tell the Ranch Club folks that and you get a million excuses why they can't do it: the hills are too steep, there's too many trees, the road is too straight, and on and on and on.

[ShoreGuy89]

I see Charles County is definitely headed in the direction of PG County. Both counties has a split identity. Some parts of the counties has a reputation for crime and low performing schools. Then other parts have an good reputation with solidly middle class or better housing, good schools, and little crime.

[kdb05f]

I don't know Maryland and a lot of the posts on this thread are talking about Charles County not becoming like PG and comments that suggest PG is not really a good place to live, so I ask what's wrong with PG County?

[btsilver]

Originally Posted by kdb05f

I don't know Maryland and a lot of the posts on this thread are talking about Charles County not becoming like PG and comments that suggest PG is not really a good place to live, so I ask what's wrong with PG County?

The perception.